Damning comments by a former Nauru president have prompted human rights groups in Australia to renew calls for the government to shut down its refugee detention camps on the island.

In an interview with The Project on Australia's Channel 10, Sprent Dabwido, who signed the original offshore detention agreement with Australia, says he now regrets having done it, describing it as akin to, "making a deal with the Devil".

The legal director of the Human Rights Law Centre, Katie Robertson, told Koroi Hawkins for the former president to liken the treatment of innocent people on the island to "torture" is a damning indictment of Australia's harmful refugee policy.